


Interlude: Leeds

by je_gigote



Series: Taylor Sisters [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 19:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/je_gigote/pseuds/je_gigote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sera reaches a turning point when she has a strange encounter in a hotel room in Leeds, North Dakota.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interlude: Leeds

**Author's Note:**

> Occurs about a year after the events of Ring of Fire. (Occurs around the time of 2x13, Houses of the Holy.)
> 
> This originally started out as a songfic of The Indigo Girls' "Leeds", but since I'm prohibited from posting song lyrics on AO3, you can read the lyrics [here](http://www.songlyrics.com/indigo-girls/leeds-lyrics/). (Each center line break corresponds to a verse of the song, if you want to read them as they correlate.)

Another winter, another year passed by, on the road to everywhere, to nowhere in particular. What’s different about this year? I’m a year older. I’m in a motel in Leeds, North Dakota. And I hear we’re all well on our way to the Apocalypse, whether we know it or not.

After I almost died in McHenry, after the Winchesters saved both me and Lucy, we headed south for a few months. It was a concession to Lucy, my way of apologizing for almost getting myself killed by a stupid Hindu fire demon. We got back into the old routine of things, clearing out vampire nests and taking out the odd werewolf. We traveled from Atlanta to Austin, up to Charleston and back across to Boulder. It was the old routine, but it was where we thrived. Fourteen hours on the road, cheap motels, watered-down PBR at townie bars, neck aches from sleeping too long in the El Camino. Trying to scrub vampire blood out of our favorite shirts, sharpening machetes and buying old broken silver jewelry to melt into bullets. Being on the road is as much a way of life as a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, cookouts on the weekend. It’s just not for everybody.

So here we are in Leeds, North Dakota, set up at the Prairie View Motel. Not too far from where our dad grew up, actually. I just wolfed down a veggie burger and cheese fries, and I’m halfway through a six-pack, my eyes glazing over the television. Lucy's out doing I’m not sure what, maybe canvassing local bars for information on vampires. We’re supposed to be up here hunting a nest, but I’m not sure what the point is anymore. If it’s the Apocalypse, we’re all dead within a matter of months. It’s like burning up on reentry: punishment for even daring to try.

************************************************************************

The nests are getting stronger. Used to be, we’d take out three or four vamps holed-up in an old hunting cabin or abandoned shack. It was nothing, like ironing a shirt or making a salad. Nowadays, we’re _fighting_ \--nests of twelve, fifteen, reckless, the bloodsuckers not caring about staying hidden or self-preservation or any of that. After a raid, we’re exhausted, bruised, cut up. There have been more than a few close calls, and our grandpa taught us to _never_ get away with close calls. One of these days, a failed close call will mean death.

A soft rustle of paper startles me; my hand reflexively goes for the machete I have hidden under the pillow. Soundlessly, I sit up on the stiff motel bed and lean toward the door, but relax when I notice it’s just papers slid under the door. I rehide the machete and cross to the door to pick them up; they’re just info from the county coroner that Lucy had requested earlier. North Dakota: fax machines are still new technology.

I’m feeling useless which is mostly the beer bringing me down, but I don’t know what else I can do. We don’t really have any good leads, just some unusually gruesome deaths that might very well be the effect of Benson County’s booming meth industry and the boredom that accompanies living in the middle of fucking nowhere.

My mind wanders back to the McHenry job, to the Winchesters. From what I’ve pieced together, they’re fighting this Apocalypse thing single-handedly. Trying to keep demons from breaking 66 seals. I’ve texted Dean more than a few times to ask if they need help, but he and I both know he’d never admit if he did.

I just want everyone to stop pretending like nothing is wrong, like the end of the world is just another Thursday.

I feel like I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and no one is listening.

************************************************************************

Back on CNN, there’s breaking news that the KKK is experiencing a “revival” of sorts, and the result is the firebombing of over a dozen AME churches between Houston and Nashville. On the fuzzy picture tube, bright orange flames lick at a black sky as they switch rapid-fire between each scene. A news anchor drones on and on about the horror and inhumanity and loss of life, and I can’t help myself from snorting--you think this is bad, buddy? I’ve seen horror the likes of which you could _never_ imagine, and it’s just going to get worse from here on out.

As they cut to some old white guy in a navy suit with a red tie--a Senator or a Representative, I check my phone again for texts from Lucy with the secret hope that there might actually be a reply from Dean Winchester on there as well. No messages, which is just another one of the universe’s damn neon signs screaming for me to stop getting my hopes up.

“...But as far as we know, this is an isolated incident of coordinated efforts by a very small, fringe group of Klansmen. We will not stand for this kind of destruction and violence. We will find the cowards who perpetrated this act of terror and bring them to justice for destroying these holy places.” The speech is so canned it’s all I can do not to sarcastic slow-clap to an empty motel room. I’m getting mean-drunk tonight, apparently, and in celebration of my recognition of this fact, I pop the tab on the fourth can of beer.

“Cheers,” I toast to no one in particular. The television blanks out to snow.

************************************************************************

“What are we toasting?” asks the voice in my left ear, and in a flash, my right hand’s reaching for the machete again, and I’m on my feet, brandishing both a machete and a Miller Lite. On the other bed, a young woman about my age sits with perfect posture, her most striking feature her hair; it’s the color of the flames of the burning churches on tv.

“Who are you?” I demand. “Where the fuck did you come from?”

“My name is Anna,” she replies calmly. She sits perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap. At least she’s not holding a weapon; doesn’t mean she won’t have one stashed away somewhere. My eyes quickly check the door for a breach, but it’s still triple locked.

“How did you get in?” I ask, more cautiously, because more than likely this is supernatural shit, and I might be in way over my head.

“My name is Anna,” she repeats, the slightest smile of amusement on her lips, “and I am an angel of the Lord.” Oh fuck, it’s a _crazy_ supernatural something. I weigh my options: drop the beer, dive for my phone, call Lucy, call the Winchesters, call 911. There’s a .45 under the bed, could I grab it in enough time if she comes at me? She hasn’t moved.

“You don’t need to call your sister, or the Winchesters. And you don’t need the machete, or your gun. I won’t hurt you.” She stands up, and I start to back away. Shit! I hate being cornered. Wait. How did she know that? Can she read my mind?

“Stay back!” I warn her, but it comes out pretty insincerely--I’m buzzed and that I don’t feel really feel threatened by this girl who’s no bigger than me. She’s still a good fifteen feet away but she raises her left hand, mirroring my right, the one wielding a machete. The muscles in my hand seem to weaken so quickly I can’t keep a hold on the knife, and it falls, useless, to my feet. My limbs feel heavier than the whole mass of the Earth.

“Would you like to set your beer down on that table there, or would you like to drop it as well and lose your deposit?” She asks this without sarcasm, as if it has already happened. As if I don’t have a choice. I lean over and set then can down with a shaky hand.

A car’s headlights flash across the window of the motel room, casting a wide swath of shadow on the walls, and for an instant, I think I see the inky outline of an enormous wingspan. Maybe _I’m_ the crazy one here.

“I am an angel of the Lord,” she repeats, slowly, like I am a child, “and I have a message for you.”

The feeling in the pit of my stomach drops even deeper, my guts turn to ice.

************************************************************************

“There is a great evil coming,” she declares, like she is reading Scripture. “You are a believer, and you will become a messenger of peace.”

“What are you talking about?” I’m growing frustrated with what she’s saying; my mind feels like molasses. I can’t understand the words, the syntax. 

“You are believer,” she professes. I sigh and collapse into one of the plastic chairs next to the table.

“ _Was_. I _was_ a believer,” I reply. “It’s hard to believe in God and the goodness of all things when evil is out to get you every second of every damn day.” I reach for my beer, take a big chug. A reflex. A bad habit.

“You possess the capacity for great faith, Sera Taylor. You had it once, and you shall have it again. You will see.” She says this so earnestly I _want_ to believe her.

“That’s the thing about faith,” I slur, “it’s easy to have when you’re a kid. When you live in a world where make-believe can be real. I’ve seen enough real shit in my life, stuff I couldn’t even _dream_ of when I was a little kid. Why should I believe in goodness and God now?” She approaches me and I can’t even be bothered to go for a weapon. I have a feeling she could snap my neck with one hand even if I was armed with an AK-47 in each hand. Her hand reaches out, pale and thin, her fingers long and delicate. As they touch my cheek, my world explodes.

************************************************************************

“Sera?” Someone’s calling my name and I’m stuck at the bottom of a pond, mired in mud and sludge and there’s water in my lungs--

No. I roll onto my back on the coarse motel room carpet. Ugh. My mouth tastes like pond muck.

“Sera?” the voice asks again, and an overhead light floods my eyes, stabbing my optic nerves.

“Lights,” I groan, throwing a heavy arm over my eyes. There’s a click, and the dark relieves me.

“Why the hell are you on the floor?” asks Lucy, more annoyed than concerned.

“Drinking,” I reply, because that’s the first thing I remember when I think about before I was not-unconscious. But there’s something else, something I can’t quite decipher in my alcoholic haze.

“In that case,” Lucy says, and puts her hand back on the wall, “lightswitch rave!” She flicks the lights on and off rapidly and I feel like I’m gonna throw up.

“Oh my God.” I wince from the pain in my eyes. “I _will_ puke on you if you continue to be an ass,” I threaten. She chuckles.

“Sorry.” She doesn’t really mean it, but at least she turns off the lights. I haul myself up to a seated position and Lucy mercifully hands me a glass of tap water. It’s tepid and tastes sort of dirty, but I chug the whole glass in a matter of seconds.

“So, what, was CNN so depressing you had to drink yourself to blackout?” She taps the power button on the remote and the tv goes black.

“No, I--” and I stop. Because it just came back to me. The angel. The wings. The shape of things to come. The way the world will be saved. The prophet and the Winchester Gospel. That I will be an instrument of peace in a world closing in on the brink of hell.

“You’re so hungover you can’t even come up with a good excuse,” Lucy replied. I run my hands over my face, feeling the stretch of my skin.

“What time is it?” I ask, squinting towards the red glare of the alarm clock. Where are my glasses? I blink a few times, and notice that I can see the small digital letters with perfect clarity.

“Two-thirty AM. Where are your glasses?” I look around.

“Uh, I don’t know. I’ll find them in the morning.” I’ll sleep on it and come up with a good excuse as to why I have perfect twenty-twenty vision that must’ve been a gift from a red-headed angel. I drag myself up to the head of the bed, pull back the covers and burrow underneath, my head coming to rest on the thin pillow.

Lucy takes five minutes to change and brush her teeth, then shuts off the light. I hear her rustle the covers as she gets comfortable in bed, but within minutes her breathing slows and regulates and she’s sleeping deeply, peacefully.

I don’t fall asleep for a long, long time.


End file.
